quite.

i dont think it would bring you harm if people knew about your ip address, seeing that you can change it easily anyway.

Your IP adress's is given out by your ISP, It should only be lead to your area not where you live. If they can see your e-mail account someone can gather information very quickly about you with just a few search's around the internet. So it could have been that.

As FoxyGamers said a IP address (Doesn't matter if its Static Or Dynamic) will only give out you location I.e I'm using grapevine in Australia and i live in Canberra , but for it to be that exact is a pretty exact locator being used. And in answer to the hacking an IP address is possible but it takes a highly skilled coder to do it.

you can change ip address? how?

I am not 100% sure but if you have an internet plan where your given a "Dynamic" IP adress then your given a new one every time you connect to the internet. If your on an internet plan with a "Static" IP adress you will always have teh same IP. (Or via versa, I think i got them right).

If you have a Static IP adress there really isnt much you can do. The best thing you could look into are Proxy's. Proxy's are like... I donno, you connect to another computer then to your ISP, Thus changing you IP adress. Though this can make your internet go super slow (worse then dial up).

In my opinion, You have nothing at all to worry about. Leave you IP as it is, Changing it wont do anything new besides change some random numbers your given.

To be honest even with a IP it's hard to locate, as you have to remember now adays with broadband internet, your connection if done via an exchange server, I am unlucky as where I live is a mile from the exchange server, but then again with my old ISP my exchange server for my internet was London, obviously miles away, so don't worry about it. Also with dynamic and statis IP's, dynamic changes regularly, mostly 24 hours depending on ISP, static, well the way you can reset your IP is to restart your modem, disconnect the wires etc and reconnect, some times it takes more than one attempt, but it works.

Sometimes if you are on broadband, you can either call up the company and have them change your IP adress *reset the lease* OR if you are say, going away for a weekend, Release your ip addre

start>run> CMD then type ipconfig /release

then unplug your box and let it sit. if your lease expires, someone else may pick up your IP, and you will get a new one.

But what's that thing with making a static ip address for port forwarding?